Tennis: Britain must heed Henmans volley

When our best tennis player says its time the sport widened its appeal, perhaps we should finally take notice

Possession of a social conscience is hardly a prime requisite for many of those raised in Middle England who achieve multi-millionaire status long before their 30th birthday. Add the words “individual sportsman”, or even worse, “tennis player”, into the equation, and the awareness of others less privileged would be expected to be largely an irrelevance.

By birthright and bank balance, as well as occupation, Tim Henman seems to fit snugly into the above-mentioned criteria. He may have been brought up in rural Oxfordshire, with a tennis court in his parents’ back garden, and be about to move into a considerably larger and expensively renovated abode of his own, but the lamentable scenario that appears to be the future of British tennis when the era of Henman and Greg Rusedski ends has caused one half of that partnership to become increasingly more proactive in the search for replacements.